SWOT Analysis of Serbia and Montenegro’s Accession to the EU

The first generation of reforms in Serbia, especially in 2001–2002, was carried out “by the book” but the initial successful results blurred and concealed numerous problems that, especially in 2003, were becoming more evident and, finally, caused a delay in, and the blockade of, the further reform processes. It turned out that the political élite failed to reach a consensus on the second generation of reforms which, above all, refers to the rounding-off and functioning of the institutions of a market economy and the rule of law in full. After the October 2000 changes, relations between the FRY/SM and the European Union have altered dramatically. Joining the EU became strategic priority of our foreign policy, as well as reintegration of the SM in the international community. Nevertheless, these processes have their strengths and weaknesses, potential opportunities and threats, which are summarized in this paper.     

The European Convention on Human Rights in the Constitutional System of Serbia and Montenegro

The paper explores the legal position of the European Convention on Human Rights in the constitutional system of Serbia and Montenegro. It casts some light on constitutional rules, international treaties and especially international treaties on human rights. The text exposes also constitutional rules on human rights. The issue of the European control over human rights in Kosovo and Metohija is raised. Attention is referred to the Resolution 1417 (2005) of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on protection of human rights in Kosovo.     

Foreign Investments as the Main Determinant Growth Factor in Asian Countries and Regions

The paper considers the main drivers of Asian growth and connects them with three groups of analyses tracks. Foreign direct investments, as the elective factor incorporating the main trends and perspectives, both at economic and financial level and in the social and political framework. Second, the regional approach, resulting more and more as the key, crucial factor in developing openness and international competitiveness, at the appropriate scale of convergence and integration in the worldwide system, has been presented in its EU connections and in the Asian peculiarities. Finally, as a third area of analysis, the new theories of growth and the capabilities already achieved to measure phenomena that were still not affordable only twenty years ago. The final results of the foresight model for evaluating long-term growth and the associated applied elaborations by the Deutsche Bank Research have almost figured out the proximity to an alternative theoretical scientific and modelling ``corpus' for the existing growth studies, specifically considering the Asian and emerging countries' recent jump into a high rates trend development, with the focus on China and India. For all these three analyses, the paper underlines the relevance for Asia to consider the experiences and successful steps of the European ``efficient laboratory', in a process of real integration towards the union of economies, societies, currencies, and security policies that has been investigated from different points of view, with the aim to focus the possible partnership and the future cooperation.     

信用中介服务业发展的中外比较研究

以探讨规范和促进我国信用中介服务行业发展途径为研究目的,分别从信用中介服务业面临市场需求的培育过程、信用中介服务业的主体构成和信用中介服务业发展的法律环境三个方面分析对比了中外之不同,并对我国信用中介服务业在此三方面的建设和发展阐述了看法。     

Creating Happier Children and More Fulfilled Social Workers: Neoliberalism,Privatization and the Reframing of Leftist Critiques in Britain

To differing degrees, governments in Europe, North America, and Australasia have, over recent years, given particular attention to the reform of services for children and families. However, the aim of this article is to focus on Britain and to examine plans to transform social-work services for children and young people who are “looked after,” that is to say, in public care. It is argued that these plans, focused on the introduction of what are termed social work practices, are best grounded and interpreted within an analytical framework that recognizes the centrality of neoliberalism. Furthermore, social workers and others working in related areas of human services provision should take account of how the plan to install social work practices is being discursively constructed and organized. Important here, it is maintained, is how this strategy seeks to deploy selectively leftist critiques of social work that have emerged over the past two decades.     

The Nonprofit Sector at a Crossroads: The Case of America

Despite some encouraging trends, America's nonprofit sector stands at a crossroads because of an interrelated series of challenges. Government budget cuts beginning in the early 1980s have eliminated a significant source of nonprofit revenues and created a serious fiscal squeeze for many organizations. Although the sector as a whole managed to replace this lost revenue, it has done so largely through fees and charges that have attracted for-profit businesses into traditional fields of nonprofit action, creating a serious economic challenge to the sector. Simultaneously, important questions have been raised about the effectiveness and accountability of nonprofit organizations, and about what some see as the overprofessionalization and bureaucratization of the sector. All of this has undermined public confidence in the sector and prompted questions about the basic legitimacy of the special tax and legal benefits it enjoys. To cope with these challenges, American nonprofits could usefully undergo a process of renewal that revives the sector's basic values, reconnects it to its citizen base, and creates a better public understanding of its functions and role.     

A Legal Perspective on Sexuality and Organization: A Lesbian and Gay Case Study

This article argues the case for incorporating legal discourse into social theories relating to sexuality and organization. The central theme around which this argument is constructed is that of the heteronormativity of the workplace which is critically interrogated by adopting perspectives of lesbian and gay workers. The processes through which this heteronormativity is maintained are examined with particular emphasis on how notions of public and private are strategically deployed to this end. The legal case study evaluates judicial discourse in court judgments noting how it contributes to and reinforces heteronormative practices. Examples are drawn from litigation in the UK and in Germany, illustrating the broad range of discursive techniques in use which in part vary according to the qualities of the legal norm at issue.     

Markets,prices and symbolic value: grands crus and the challenges of global markets

Certain authors have drawn attention to the fact that competition between businesses has taken the form of competition for the power over regulation and the imposition of a particular style of production. The dominant businesses can thus create barriers to those entering the market, which can either be cultural or legal. The strategies employed essentially consist of establishing norms of production which prevent competitors from entering the market in such a way that competition, as Simmel refers to it, never takes the form of direct fonflict. By examining the French wine industry, the aim of this work is to investigate how this form of market control, which is only favourable for a certain number of businesses, can be brought into question. Given that it is usually technological innovation which is responsible for the transformation of the market forces involved with industrially produced products, the wine market is very interesting to study as such innovation is often excluded through the institutionalisation of scarcity. This institutionalisation is constructed on the valorisation of ‘traditional’ methods and the delimitation of certain privileged zones of production. How can such rules which attribute the principle of non-reproductibility to history and nature be brought into question? Firstly, we can investigate the specificity of newcomers to the market who are capable of destabilising the current norms of production. We can also investigate whether we should attribute such questioning of the dominant norms to the particular distinctive properties of said norms, or whether we need to take into account other relevant transformations occurring in a wider social context. Notable examples of such transformations are the increase in standing of oenology from mere knowledge to the status of a science with its recognised professions, the reorganisation of rural space and the reorganisation of market structures, in particular the social composition of demand.     

The Role of Emigration in Foreign Aid Policies: The Case of Spain and Morocco

This article analyses the relationships between emigration and Official Development Aid (ODA) policies, taking the cases of Spain and Morocco as the backdrop to the study. It discusses the principal characteristics of both the Spanish state and non-governmental cooperation in Morocco, the underlying motivations of the principal stakeholders, and the way international cooperation policies now encompass the phenomenon of emigration. The paper compares the field of co-development, which encompasses a rather limited understanding of immigration, with ODA policies, in which immigration is an increasingly important agenda item for both the central government and the Spanish autonomous communities. The article then examines the relationship between migration and development, and considers necessary changes of perspective required to enhance the development and emigration policies in both Spain and Morocco. Lastly, we conclude with a series of recommendations, based on our analysis, aimed at Spanish and Moroccan stakeholders, both state institutions and non-governmental organizations.     

Gendered Leadership: The Effects of Female Development Agency Leaders on Foreign Aid Spending

This article examines the effects of gender on the leadership of bilateral development aid agencies, particularly their official development assistance (ODA) allocations toward gender‐related programming. Drawing on earlier research on gendered leadership, the article tests the hypothesis that female director generals (DGs) and ministers responsible for aid agencies will allocate more ODA than their male counterparts toward gender programming. This existing literature on gendered leadership is divided: some scholars argue that women and men have distinct leadership styles on account of their gender, while others argue that the only distinguishing factor is the institutional context in which they lead. Drawing on data collected on aid flows and agency leadership within the major Western aid donors of the Organisation for Economic Co‐operation and Development (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) over the period from 1995 through 2009, we use pooled time series analysis to examine the effects of gendered leadership on aid allocation. Our analysis reveals a tendency for female DGs and ministers to focus ODA on gender‐mainstreaming programs, while male DGs focus ODA on gender‐focused programs. We argue that these divergent priorities reflect the women's desire to reform gendered power structures within their respective aid agencies, and the men's desire to maintain existing gender power structures from which they benefit.     

State-Corporate Relationships in an Era of Shifting Regime: The Case of Corporate Law Reform in Israel

Different aspects of the relationship between state and economy have traditionally been examined, yet corporate governance and specifically corporate law have received less attention. This article focuses on the legislation of the new corporate law in Israel at the end of the 1990s, which took place during regime transformation from an interventionist state to a regulatory state. The article makes specific reference to three disputes: the lifting of the corporate veil, the separation of the positions of chairman of the board and chief executive officer, and the obligation of private firms to disclose financial reports. This article suggests that despite the transformation of the regime, state actors have continuously been involved via corporate law in the governance of corporations and their relationship with the environment. However, corporate law enables corporations to constrain state power and the state's influence on property rights.     

Executive Turnover and the Legal Environment: The Case of California Hospitals, 1960–1995

Examinations of executive turnover have analyzed whether poor organizational performance predicts changing leadership. However, few have examined environmental factors affecting turnover. Applying event history analysis to a random sample of California hospitals, we find that poor performance prompts executive turnover and that the legal environment impacts turnover in three ways. First, the legal form of hospitals shapes evaluation and replacement of executives. Second, a shift in the legal definition of not-for-profit hospitals affects turnover. Finally, turnover increases when hospitals change from for-profit to not-for-profit and vice versa. These findings persist in the presence of numerous control variables.     

Paying for the Dream of Public Ownership: Case Studies on Corruption and Privatization in China

The proceeding of privatization is a tradeoff between short-term equality and long-term efficiency. Under the existing structures of enterprise management and government powers, enterprise managers are likely to conspire with government officials to decide the way of ownership transformation and share the benefits from there. The transformation of ownership will enhance the efficiency of the company. Corruption indeed presses ahead the transformation of company ownership, whereas inequality is also aggravated during the process. Case studies are provided to demonstrate the relationship between corruption and privatization in China. Corruption and inequality are what the country pays for their dream of public ownership in 1950s. Equality, efficiency and maintaining current social and political structure cannot be achieved simultaneously during enterprise restructuring.

Foreign Language Skills and Willingness to Move: The Case of a Spanish Region

This research is aimed at assessing the effect of foreign language skills on the geographical area selected by the Spanish unemployed when looking for a job. A Zero‐Inflated Ordered Probit (ZIOP) model has been estimated to analyse the impact of foreign language skills on the geographical scope of the search. The outcomes show that the job search area is broader in case of men, young unemployed, more educated people, and those who never received unemployment benefits. Likewise, foreign language skills (in English, German and French) are highlighted as one of the most influencing factors when widening the job search area.     

Food‐Retail Development and the Myth of Everyday Low Prices: The Case of Brazil

This article analyses the changes in Brazilian food retailing by investigating the co‐existence of, and the pricing variation across, large supermarket chains and small independent supermarkets. It uses cointegration tests to show that, despite the widespread belief that small supermarkets are inefficient and charge higher prices, they in fact charge lower prices. Accordingly, in contrast to the prevailing literature on food‐retail development, competition in food retail is complex and cannot be described as a simple Darwinian process of market concentration. The article explores the survival of small retail and its consequences for the current discussion on modern food retail in developing countries.     

金融危机下制造业的困境与对策——以东莞为例

东莞是全球著名的“制造工厂”,经过改革开放30年的发展,制造业企业已经成为东莞经济增长的引擎。近年来,随着原材料、劳动力成本上涨,人民币升值,特别是2008年受全球金融海啸影响,东莞制造业出现了前所未有的危机,市场萎缩、成本上涨、利润下滑、融资困难。文章在系统分析30年来东莞经济和产业结构特征的基础上,剖析目前东莞制造业企业的困境及原因,探究其摆脱困境的对策,旨在为政府和企业决策提供参考。